[Footnote 44:  Evidence before the Truck Commissioners (1871), Q. 37,500.]

[Footnote 45:  Pamphlet of 1825, p. 14.]

[Footnote 46:  Home Office Papers, 40, Letter from R.J.  Blewitt, Esq., M.P., November 6, 1839.]

[Footnote 47:  Richard Fynes, Miners of Northumberland and Durham, p. 72.]

[Footnote 48:  John Wilson, History of the Durham Miners’ Association (1870-1904), p. 40.]

[Footnote 49:  Report of Commissioner on the State of the Mining Population (1846).]

[Footnote 50:  These pamphlets are in the British Museum.]

[Footnote 51:  Report of Commissioner on the State of the Mining Population (1850).]

[Footnote 52:  Ibid. (1852).]

[Footnote 53:  Royal Commission, First Report (Mines), p. 27.]

[Footnote 54:  Ibid., p. 21.]

[Footnote 55:  Royal Commission, Second Report (Trades and Manufactures), p. 147.]

[Footnote 56:  Ibid., pp. 155-6.]

[Footnote 57:  Midland Mining Commission, First Report, p. 34.]

[Footnote 58:  Ibid., p. 91.]

[Footnote 59:  Ibid., p. 44.]

[Footnote 60:  Rural Rides, ii. 353.]

[Footnote 61:  Commons Committee, Stoppage of Wages (Hosiery, 1854).  Evidence of Mr. Tremenheere.]

[Footnote 62:  Evidence before the Truck Commissioners, Q. 33,670.]

[Footnote 63:  Truck Commission, 1871.  Report, p. 16.]

[Footnote 64:  Commons Committee, Stoppage of Wages in the Hosiery Manufacture (1854), Q. 80.]

[Footnote 65:  Commons Committee of 1816, pp. 64 and 73.]

[Footnote 66:  Ibid., p. 38.]

[Footnote 67:  Ibid., p. 28.]

[Footnote 68:  Speech, March 29, 1825.]

[Footnote 69:  Letter to the Chevalier Bunsen, 1834, quoted in Strachey, Eminent Victorians, p. 197.]

VIII

ATOMIC THEORIES

PROFESSOR W.H.  BRAGG, C.B.E., D.SC., F.R.S.

When a lecture on the progress of Science is given before a conference concerned largely with historical subjects, it is not inappropriate to point out that Science has a history of its own and that its progress makes a connected story.  The discovery of new facts is not made in an isolated fashion, nor is it a matter of pure chance, unaffected by what has gone before.  On the contrary, scientific progress is made step by step, each new point that is reached forming a basis for further advances.  Even the direction of discovery is not entirely in the explorer’s control; there is always a next step to be taken and a limited number of possible steps forward from which a choice can be made.  The scientific discoverer has to go in the direction in which his discoveries lead him.  When discoveries have been made it is possible to think of uses to which they may be put, but in the first instance all discoveries are made without any knowledge whatever of what use may afterwards be made of them.